


On The Other Side

by vphiira



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Drabbles, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, ritsuizu if you squint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-04-28 13:06:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14449893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vphiira/pseuds/vphiira
Summary: a collection of short enstars drabbles as they come3. shuu + leo - a visit to the fallen king4. ritsu + makoto - there is a suspicious visitor tonight5. mao/makoto - ritsu brings a stranger to mao's doorstep





	1. shuu/nazuna - shuu sees a ghost

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed. His hands were cold and stiff, clutching the damp bark of the log he sat on. Morning dew glinted off the lakeshore as the grey pre-dawn light began to give way to faint pinks and yellows. Besides him, a small, ghostly figure hopped off the log.

“It’s time for me to go, Itsuki.”

Shuu breathed out. Every morning he heard these same words, and every morning he felt his heart skip two beats. He had met this spirit months ago at the edge of the quiet lake in the forest, had felt his world slip from under his feet when he saw that painfully familiar face, had tripped over his own feet as he ran from the spirit when it approached him– in the end, he found himself keeping the lost soul company every night until the sun broke over the horizon. Sometimes they talked, quiet and easy. Other times they sat in silence, Shuu’s hands working a needle through cloth by the light of his lantern. He preferred those times, because then he didn’t have think about what that ghostly voice said to him, why they even held those conversations in the first place. He could ignore that ugly black pit that threatened to claw through his stomach every time he saw the ghost’s face.

“I’ll see you again?”

The sound of the ghost’s voice yanked Shuu out of his thoughts. Don’t, he wanted to say. “Of course,” his traitorous mouth let slip. Before he could so much as bite out another word, warm rays of sunlight scattered the shape of his ethereal companion into wisps of morning fog. He shouldn’t come again tonight. He never should’ve stayed in the first place. The ghost wasn’t Nazuna. He knew it wasn’t. Ghosts were fragments of regret, left behind by departed souls brimming with unfulfilled desire. But all the same, it brushed its bangs to the left when they fell in front of its eyes, tilted its head just so when it was confused, smiled with the tiniest curl of its lips when it found something amusing, and those traces of Nazuna hurt a place so deep in Shuu he thought he would never stitch himself back together. 

He clenched and unclenched his hands against the wood, stretching out the kinks and cramps that had developed from the cold night air. He didn’t get much work done tonight, not after the ghost had asked him if Shuu had known it in life. 

_Don’t be stupid_ , he had snapped. Black guilt ripped through his lungs as Nazuna’s face flinched away.

 _I’m.. sorry. I was just… I told you I felt drawn to you, and I… I think it was because you felt… familiar? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you_ , the ghost had whispered back.

Like a moth to flame, Shuu thought. Nothing good came of it when Nazuna had followed him in life, to the city and then the battlefield, and nothing good would come of it beyond life either. He didn’t deserve to see Nazuna’s face again, not after what had happened, and he knew nothing he could do would help the ghost move on. And yet there was a part of Shuu that carried his feet back to the forest lake every night, unable to ignore the echoes of what he once had. Even in the pale guise of the afterlife, Nazuna was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Shuu picked up his sewing kit and the winter garments he had meant to work on. The autumn chill was setting in, and soon he would need heavier garments to ward off the cold nights. Kagehira needed a new pair of gloves too– the boy’s own work didn’t yet hold up to the heavy wear he put his gloves through.

The sun was climbing up the sky by now. Kagehira would be waking soon, and he needed to be back to make sure the boy ate a breakfast that didn’t come out of the sweets jar. One brisk step at a time, Shuu left behind the forest lake that held an unfathomable, bitter regret.

He would be back at midnight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy birthday nazuna!
> 
> my hands wouldn't write anything suitably happy so have... this


	2. ritsu/hajime - angels shouldn't go where demons lie

“Haakun really shouldn’t be here.”

Delicate features cupped in delicate hands, the slightest pressure of razor nails, dark hair falling from one face to another. Hajime stared up into the demon’s red, red eyes and tried not to blink. Demons were dangerous, made up of the stuff where the sun didn’t shine, prowling and preying on the innocent. They existed in the shadows cast by the light of heaven, but drawn into Ritsu’s gaze, Hajime felt no fear. His pulse thrummed not with terror, but something _else_ –something like the air before thunder cracks and lightning flashes, like falling with no wings to catch him. 

Hajime took three breaths in, out, in, out, in, out. Ritsu’s red eyes still loomed over his own. Did demons even need to blink? He thought of Ritsu stretched out on his lap, silky black hair pooling like ink, pale skin cool to the touch, a pair of wings unlike his own tucked against his side. He thought of the things that were Ritsu, thought of sleepy demands and a penchant for napping in the most unexpected places. 

Hajime thought of all this, still looking up at only Ritsu and nowhere else. Then he closed his eyes against that unrelenting sunset stare, brought his own hands up to rest over Ritsu’s, and leaned up.

“Thank you, Ritsu-san,” he blindly whispered, so close he could feel the ghost of Ritsu’s breath. “But please let me stay.”

Electricity sparked in his heart when he felt Ritsu’s lips against his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new gacha got me thinking about angel/demon aus again bc i'm basic and desperate so i churned out the shortest thing ever


	3. shuu + leo - a visit to the fallen king

Shuu rapped on the heavy oak twice.

“Come out.”

There was no answer today, as usual. Embedded in the trunk of a great tree and shrouded under the thick foliage of the deep fae woods, a door peeked out from under crawling vines. A surprisingly well-worn path winded between patches of cowslips and clovers, leading into the forest beyond. Carved into the door was a name.

 _Leo_.

The great wizard-king, famed mage of the western realms, said to be a descendant of the fairies themselves. Six months ago, he’d disappeared. Went crazy, they said. Losing a city and a hand would do that to someone, even one as powerful as the king himself. Some speculated that he had wandered off to die somewhere. Others thought he embarked on a quest for restoration, or perhaps revenge on the crusaders that toppled his castle walls.

None of them knew the truth. None, save his closest friends and closest enemies. Which category Shuu fell in, he wasn’t sure. It didn’t particularly matter to him– Tsukinaga Leo was a fellow mage, albeit one that somehow relied on instinct alone to guide his spells. An incomprehensibly chaotic, undeniably dangerous method of doing magic, yet Tsukinaga managed time and again to weave powerful spellwork with an intricacy second only to Shuu himself. An indescribably irritating fellow mage, Shuu had decided. One who had locked himself away in his ancestral home in the heart of the fae woods.

“The interplanar council has determined that a wizard-in-training will be appointed soon. Your loyal knight still holds tight to your throne, but he will be assigned to mentor the neophyte. I believe they have called the vampire back to the castle as well.”

The whorls in Tsukinaga’s oaken door stared back at him soundlessly.

“He will be visiting soon. Sena.”

If Shuu blinked hard enough, he thought he could see the runes on the bulbous glass windows shimmer. His fingers twitched, brushing the pages of a spelltome, as if seized by the urge to simply blast the wood away. Then he smoothed out the binding and firmly kept his hand on its cover.

“How unsightly. I will see you at the next mage’s convent." 

He turned around and walked away from the gnarled, shaded door.

* * *

“Oshi-san?”

“Kagehira. If you have something to say, then say it.”

“The king’s gone to the faewilds, right? Then… did ya see Nazuna-nii?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love shuu and leo's relationship, even when one of them won't leave his damn room
> 
> this is part of a loose fairy/high fantasy au


	4. ritsu + makoto - there is a suspicious visitor tonight

That kind of look spelled trouble, Ritsu knew, but it’d be more trouble later if Secchan found out Ritsu had let a suspiciously hooded man slip through on his watch. No two ways about it but to cut to the chase, right?

Ritsu ambled up behind the figure, hands loose by his sides and just within reach of the knives strapped to his belt.

“Boo.”

The boy– because Ritsu could see the youthful face under that hood now– shrieked and spun around, green eyes blown wide behind thick wire-rimmed frames. His hands fumbled with something that glinted oddly in the dark of the night, but the boy managed to tuck it away in his cloak before Ritsu could get a good look at it. Hmm. Interesting, maybe magical, and very suspicious.

Slowly blinking in a way he knew unnerved humans, Ritsu lazily fixed the intruder in place with a stare. He graciously gave the intruder two moments before digging through his pocket to find his Secchan-approved speech about the kingdom’s current embargo on visitors, but the boy began rambling before Ritsu even got through the first sentence.

“Please, I need to get in! I know you’re not supposed to, but I really need to see someone right now. I don’t know when your borders will be open again but this can’t wait, it’s urgent, it’s for the sake of–”

Ritsu cut him off with a wave of the notepaper. “Aah, yes, right. Too bad, Ou-sama won’t give you help right now. Come back later.”

The boy’s green eyes shone with some unidentifiable emotion. “It’s not your king I need help from. It’s...” He trailed off, glancing away from the city gate.

Ritsu’s gaze flicked to the boy’s hands, which had crept to the space that held the odd item he glimpsed earlier, then returned to intently staring at the boy’s face. Clearly growing more uncomfortable by the second, the boy fidgeted with the cloak of his hood, then took a deep breath, still avoiding eye contact with Ritsu.

He mumbled the words like a confession. “It’s... someone called Sena Izumi.”

Oh, now _that_ was interesting. Ritsu felt his eyebrows creep upwards in surprise, replacing his previous look of neutral boredom. A suspicious boy who didn’t want their vaunted king, but rather his infamous champion knight? This might be worth the trouble of the nagging lecture he knew he’d get from Secchan if he let this kid in. He briefly entertained the idea of taking the kid to Secchan himself before the next two words stopped him in his tracks.

“We were…” A quiet whisper from the boy that he surely didn’t mean to let slip, but Ritsu’s hearing was far superior to that of regular humans. _We were?_ He felt a sour taste rise in his mouth at the implication. The boy knew Secchan, some long time ago, from before Ou-sama and their broken kingdom. Ritsu didn’t know if he liked that.

Should he bring the boy to Secchan? The champion knight held the weight of their kingdom on his shoulders right now. Secchan looked whole enough, but Ritsu knew better than anyone how he was cracking with every day he held the crown, cracks that Ritsu could do nothing to repair. What would this boy take from their kingdom? What would this boy do to Secchan?

It was a decision for another night. Ritsu would let him in, this kid with an interesting trinket and unknown past, but Secchan would not meet the boy. Not until he was ready. Ritsu reached for his belt, and the boy jumped like he had forgotten Ritsu could move. Ah, right. His knives. He let a grin curl on his face, unhooking the gate keys from his belt to hold them up, giving them a little shake.

“Ahaha~ you can follow me.” The hope that blossomed in the boy’s expression made the sour taste in Ritsu’s mouth sharpen. “Ah, but the champion is busy, you know? The inns are all closed these days, so… Mm, I guess you can stay with Maa-kun.”

Ritsu glided past the boy to unspell the gate lock and slot the key in. He could let the boy stay there, away from the castle in all its fragility. Behind him, he could hear the boy scramble to turn around, sputtering thank-you’s and other nonsense.

“And– my name is Yuuki Makoto!”

Ritsu turned the key. _Yuu-kun_ , he thought. Yuu-kun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for the kind comments so far! i apologize for not responding but they're extremely appreciated!
> 
> is this a part of the fae au? is this something else? i will never know


	5. mao/makoto - ritsu brings a stranger to mao's doorstep

_Knock_.

“Nn…”

_Knock._

A hand aimlessly reached out from under the blanket to turn on a spelled night lamp.

_Knock._

“Coming, Ritsu. Give me a moment, will you? I was just about to sleep, seriously...”

_… Knock._

Still rubbing the drowsiness from his eyes, Mao threw open the door. “What the hell is going on for–”

_Bam!_

“ _Ow ow ow_ –”

“Oh shit I’m so sorry–”

“Ahahaha~”

A blonde stranger was sprawled on the cobblestones outside his house, one hand gingerly touching the spot where Mao’s door had slammed into his face. Glasses askew and wearing a heavy travelling cloak, the stranger looked to be about his age. Standing to the side was Ritsu, openly snickering at the scene in front of him. Mao immediately kneeled down besides the poor stranger he had just smacked with his front door, hands hovering in panicked confusion as the stranger picked himself off the street.

“Are you okay? I’m so sorry, here–”

The stranger took his proffered hand, grimacing and pulling himself back to his feet. His hand was rather soft for a traveller’s, Mao noted. He let go once the other man seemed to have his balance.

“Haah, thank you… I’m fine, really, thank you.”

Now that the stranger was off the ground, Mao could finally get a good look at him. He was a few centimeters taller than Mao, with short blonde hair and bright green eyes, a striped grey tunic and finely made boots beneath the cloak. Mao had never seen him before in his life, which meant he was from out of town, which should be impossible.

“Aah, Maa-kun, this is Yuu-kun.” Ritsu’s laughter had subsided, but he still wore an odd expression that was not quite a smile, not quite the usual faint annoyance. He motioned in Mao’s general direction. “He’s from…. hm, where are you from? Anyway, he’ll be staying with you for a while.”

“Ritsu, what the hell.” Mao shot his longtime friend a dark look. This was definitely more concerning than things with Ritsu usually were. An outsider that Ritsu clearly let in, but didn’t even know anything about? He had no idea what was going on, and it was troubling. “What do you mean, _where is he from_? Don’t just dump some stray you found on my porch. You’re not even going to check in on him, are you.”

“But Maa-kun is the kind of person who enjoys taking care of others, so it’s fine.” Ritsu dismissed his comments with an airy gesture. He yawned widely, starting towards Mao’s open doorway. “Maa-kun, I want to take a break from duty. I’m going to rest here for a while.”

Mao held an arm out across his doorway. “It’s night out, shouldn’t you be full of energy? Come on, get going. I haven’t even slept yet because of you, you know? I’m tired too.” Then he looked to the stranger who was standing a bit to side, awkwardly glancing between the two childhood friends. Mao offered him what he hoped was a welcoming smile. “I apologize, what was your name? Yuu..?”

“Yuuki, uhh, Yuuki Makoto.” The stranger, no, Yuuki didn’t look any less lost, but kept talking. “Sorry, I shouldn’t impose, but he… uhh, that is, your friend? He said all the inns were closed so I would be staying with you. I can pay you for a place to sleep? Yeah, uhm, don’t worry about feeding me, I can pay for my own meals.”

“Oh, uh, there’s no need to apologize,” Mao responded. It was true; Yuuki didn’t have many other options give the state of the kingdom, and Mao had a sneaking suspicion that Ritsu wanted to keep Yuuki’s presence under wraps. “Come on in, let’s get you settled for the night. Ritsu, stop loitering and get back to work. I don’t have space for three people. And the knights won’t be happy with you if they find out you’ve been slacking again.”

Without waiting for Ritsu’s response– _Maa-kun is blackmailing me, how awful_ – he turned around and led Yuuki into his home. “He’s a troublesome guy, that one. Don’t worry though. He may be a vampire, but he’s still a knight of this kingdom.”

Yuuki shuddered a little.

“Ah, he won’t attack you, seriously.” Door shut firmly against the chilly night air, Mao felt sleep tug at his eyelids again. “Here’s the spare futon, you can lay it out over there. There’s a chamberpot in the corner, and the kitchen is through that door if you need anything. Sorry, I don’t have a bath. The public bathhouse is right around the corner, I can show you tomorrow morning.” Mao landed in his bed with a soft thud, keeping an eye on Yuuki as he fumbled with the bedding on the other side of the room. “You can turn off the lamp with just a touch, it’s just a light enchantment.”

Mao closed his eyes, ready to fall back asleep when he heard Yuuki softly speak up.

“Eh, uhm, thank you very much… uh...”

Oh, his name. He’d forgotten to introduce himself amidst all the late night chaos.

“Nn, it’s Isara Mao.”

A rustle of blankets, a quiet tap, and then he felt the luminosity from his lamp fade away.

“Thank you, Isara-kun.”

Mao’s reply was lost as he drifted off into a deep sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> takes place following 4. ritsu + makoto
> 
> if i said i knew where these were going i'd be lying


End file.
